You Are the Whole Thing

[Guest guest]

In the midst of the current subject on interfaith dialogue, please find here

with an interesting article on 'AWARENESS' by Scott Morrison - inspiration

drawn from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

" We don't have awareness, we are awareness. And awareness is love. When it

is wide open, when it is not fixated on some narrow and contrived identity,

some narrow craving, argument, irritation, or fear, the nature of awareness

is unconditionally affectionate, tender, sensitive, and compassionate.

Advaita Vedanta, Christian meditation, the Buddhadharma, Kabbalah,

Vipassana, Tibetan Dzogchen, Zen practice, Sufi practice, and all true forms

of mysticism, at their very best, are simply doors to this discovery. The

radical, unconditional mercy of Jesus, the uncorrupted compassion and

understanding of the Buddha - these are just metaphors for your own pure

heart, the core of your own being. Yours, mine, everyone's.

 

 

Your life is Love's life. If you try to take it away, if you try to limit it

in an attempt to satisfy some mental or emotional obsession with security or

pleasure, you will, in short order, find yourself habitually wandering

through any number of hell realms of envy, fear, worry, possessiveness,

jealousy, sorrow, stress, frustration, rage, craving, addiction, greediness,

competitiveness, pettiness, loneliness, depression, or whatever. If you

doubt that in even the slightest way, watch self-centered thinking very

closely, and see where it all leads, over and over and over again.

 

 

How to bring hell to its end? Stop taking mental images and stories about

yourself and other people seriously; stop indulging in them as if they are

important, as if they might be reliable or useful, as if they actually mean

something. Self-centered thinking, all self-centered thinking, is a kind of

insanity. It is neither honest nor accurate, and is a constant, hurtful

distraction from all that is. Even though there may be secure and familiar

sensations of endocrine and nervous system habit, it is a pathological

luxury you cannot afford. (If you want to be awake and free, that is.) The

irony is that when you let go, when you give it up completely, the peace and

security you sought in so many limited and transient forms, is everywhere.

 

 

The word " enlightened " simply refers to life without a past or a future,

life without self-centered fantasy (all of which is made up of nothing but

memory). Sex fantasies, romantic fantasies, money fantasies, power

fantasies, political fantasies, prestige fantasies, security fantasies,

control fantasies - there is no reality, no love, and no freedom in any of

them. Stop indulging in that kind of escapist daydreaming, and you will

suddenly realize that you are the world, all of it unfolding,

moment-by-moment. You are the whole thing, and every sight, every sound,

every smell, taste, feeling, thought, experience and circumstance,

everything that takes birth, lives out its life, and dies, is you. The idea

of separate identity, whether neurotic or grandiose, with all of its

competitive and conflicting desires, using people, judging or blaming

yourself or other people, none of it makes sense anymore. In fact, the

memory of all such activity breaks your heart.

 

What is it like? It's not like anything you could ever imagine or think

about. The world is absolutely complete and serene, and you are struck dumb

with infinite love and wonder. Words like good, bad, right, wrong, me, mine,

you, yours, us, them, beauty, ugliness, loneliness, division, or isolation

no longer mean anything at all anymore. "

 

------

One is reminded of Swami Vivekananda in his lecture, " My Master " ,delivered

in New York, 1896.This is the message of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern

world: 'Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or sects, or

churches, or temples; they count for little compared with the essence of

existence in each man, which is spirituality; and the more this is developed

in a man, the more powerful is he for good.Earn that first, acquire that,

and criticize no one, for all doctrines and creeds have some good in

them.Show by your lives that religion does not mean words or names or sects,

but that it means spiritual realization.

 

Perhaps focusing on the essence of the teachings of The Great Masters call

it 'Essence of existence' 'Vedanta', 'Spirituality' or plain Awareness'

during such dialogue may be of help.

 

Regards

 

Ravi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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